Rhythm of the Road

On the road again Goin’ places that I’ve never been Seein’ things that I may never see again And I can’t wait to get on the road again On the road again … ~ “On the Road Again” by Willie Nelson We pulled into the familiar place, road weary and hungry, to be greeted by […]

Local is Logical

Most Friday mornings, we walk the few blocks into town for breakfast at the diner. Old trees, mostly ragged Silver Maples, fill the tree lawns that front the even older homes in the historic district. Enroute, we stop to pet the aging yellow lab sunning herself in someone’s front yard — she starts wagging her […]

Life on the Edge

No matter how refined we may think ourselves, at some level we are all still wild creatures, made up of the same materials as the mountains, the deserts, the oceans, the distant stars. ~ Gary Kamiya There’s a war going on in my yard. Clover, dandelions and violets run rampant in the lawn, overgrowing the […]

Over-ground

Obviously, I do rockets, so I like things that fly. This is not some inherent bias against flying things, but there is a challenge with flying cars in that they’ll be quite noisy, the wind force generated will be very high. Let’s just say that if something’s flying over your head, a whole bunch of […]

The Plot Thickens

“So whether it’s redeveloping dying malls or re-inhabiting dead big-box stores or reconstructing wetlands out of parking lots, I think the fact is the growing number of empty and under-performing, especially retail, sites throughout suburbia gives us actually a tremendous opportunity to take our least-sustainable landscapes right now and convert them into more sustainable places.” […]

Hard Edges

Hot town, summer in the city Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty Been down, isn’t it a pity Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city All around, people looking half dead Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head ~The Lovin’ Spoonful “… in cities … one seems to lose […]

The Last Straw?

The last light went out, plunging the neighborhood into darkness. First, a quiet rustling, then silence. Somewhere a dog barks. The rustling resumes. The garbage can lid shifts slightly with a tinny sound. Suddenly, the lid flips off the can and an explosion of plastic straws, disposable water bottles and fast food wrappers cascades onto […]

Out of Bounds

There is an urgent need for a new paradigm that integrates the continued development of human societies and the maintenance of the Earth system (ES) in a resilient and accommodating state. The planetary boundary (PB) framework contributes to such a paradigm by providing a science-based analysis of the risk that human perturbations will destabilize the […]